General strategies
Turning teachers into master readers
Making the invisible visible
Thinking aloud
Visual strategies
The importance of literacy
Identity formation
Reflection

General strategies

The following are general reading strategies. Though they have been developed for the classroom, they are also useful in the school library environment. They might best be used in an atmosphere of collaboration between the school librarian and the classroom teacher. "The school library media specialist collaborates with teachers and other specialists to integrate reading strategies into lessons and units of instruction" (Empowering Learners, 21).

Silent Sustained Reading (SSR)

• Students should choose their own books.
• SSR should happen for 20-25 minutes at least 2 times a week.
• The expectation is that students will read at least 200 pages per month.
• Along with reading, students should maintain a reflective reading log, write reflective letters about their reading to the teacher, and design a project or presentation about their book.

Because they will be held accountable for their reading, they will begin to reengage in reading behaviors. If SSR is treated as a serious endeavor, they will begin to recognize the importance of independent reading.

Reciprocal Teaching (RT)

• Questioning
• Clarifying
• Summarizing
• Predicting

All of these actions will serve to increase student understanding and reinforce reading comprehension. They engage students with the text and make reading an interactive experience. They take the emphasis off of the teacher and place the responsibility of reading on the student.

Giving Books the Ten-Page Chance

• If a book captures a student's interest by the time he or she has read the first ten pages, he or she should keep reading.
• If after ten pages the student doesn't like the book, he or she should stop and find another one, either on his/her own or with the help of a friend, parent, or teacher.
• If, at the end of ten pages, the student isn't sure what to think of the book, he or she should consider giving it another ten-page chance.

Students will come to understand that they can choose what to read and what to not read when they engage in pleasure reading. Abandoning a book in that context is not the sign of a poor reader; it shows that students are intelligent, discriminating readers.

The ReQuest Strategy

Students write their own questions based on assigned reading. One student begins the activity in class by reading one of his/her questions, and then calling on a volunteer to answer it. If the volunteer is correct, he/she becomes the new questioner. The process continues until everyone in the class has answered at least one question.

This activity can be developed futher once the different categories of questions have been taught, based on Raphael's question types: right there, pulling it together, author and me, on my own. Ultimately, students will be able to identify, create, and answer more sophisticated questions. Using this framework leads to more focused reading and increased understanding.

Literature Circles

• Students choose the novel they will read
• Students set the schedule and group expectations for completing the novel
• Students participate in and observe fishbowl discussions - the group inside the fishbowl discusses their novel while the students' outside of the fishbowl observe and rate the discussion

Voice-Over

• Each student calls up a voice in his or her head that they can imagine speaking in the style of the text given out in class.

Buddy Reading

• a very low-skilled 5th grader is paired with a 2nd grader
• the 5th grader reads a large quantity of young children's literature in order to recommend titles to the 2nd grader
• the 5th grader keeps logs of book summaries, new vocabulary words, and comprehension questions to ask the 2nd grader
• the 5th grader develops fluency and confidence as a reader while preparing for the weekly sessions

Repeated Readings

• student picks a motivating text
• practices reading the text orally with expression while taping and re-taping their readings
• student produces a book on tape that can be shared with an appropriate audience

Reader's Theater

• a good venue for building fluency and comprehension
• reader must decide meaning of passage in order to give the words proper emphasis and interpretation for the audience

Turning teachers into master readers

For subject-matter teachers to implement reading apprenticeships, they need to understand their own reading experiences. Exploring reading in a community allows for more feedback and greater exploration, so working together is advised (though teachers can train individually if necessary). In the example scenarios, teachers might say out loud what they were thinking frequently while reading, causing them to articulate the reading process and get feedback on their process from others.

• Realizing Reading Processes: One sample development activity involved teachers reading from a short text that was difficult enough to challenge them. The ensuing conversation included dividing up their reading processes into four categories: fluency, motivation, cognition, and knowledge. By creating a chart of these activities, teachers have a visual representation of the "complexity of knowledge" (155).
• Think-Aloud Practice requires participants to verbalize the entire reading process. Pairs of teachers work through a text (again, a complex text requiring reading engagement at this level)--one reads and the other states, out loud, what she is thinking about the text and how she is working on comprehend it.
• Close Reading: Teachers read several paragraphs of a text, then answer the questions "What do you think you know?" and "What in the text makes you think you know it?"
• Disciplinary reading tricks are the focus of the fourth strategy, where "teachers in the same subject area all tackle the same challenging discipline-specific text" (163). First, they record their pre-reading expectations and predictions about the text. After ten minutes of reading, they respond in their journals to some questions about their reading process (e.g. "What questions, if any, were you asking as you read?") Teachers then analyze their notes--first individually, then in the group--to identify the specific processes they use to read in their disciplines. These notes can then be shared between disciplines to highlight differences.

Making the invisible visible

Knowing how to read a text is a crucial part of information literacy. School librarians can use these techniques to show students how to make sense of the texts they encounter. "The school library media specialist models reading strategies in formal and informal instruction" (Empowering Learners, 21).

Explicit Instruction in self-monitoring and cognitive strategies that facilitate reading a variety of texts

• Students should be taught to maintain reflective reading logs and write reflective letters to their teachers in order to monitor their reading progress.
• Students should be taught to investigate texts as authors' creations that are devised or constructed in particular times and places and with specific purposes, intended audiences, and points of view.
• Students should learn to use a set of strategies for reading subject area textbooks and primary source documents (summarizing, paraphrasing, underlining, highlighting, outlining, journaling, etc.)

Focus on Metacognition

• Define and frame metacognition in a way that students will understand, using any number of metaphors/examples.
• When discussing texts, ask students questions about how they read: "How do you know when your understanding is breaking down?" "Can you point to certain places in a text where you tend to 'lose it'?" "How do you get back on track when you begin to notice that you are 'not getting it'?"
• Provide students with a handout for ideas about what to do when they find themselves confused while reading a text:
  • Ignore the unclear part and read on to see if it gets clearer
  • Reread the unclear part
  • Reread the sentence(s) before the unclear part
  • Try to connect the unclear part to something you already know.

Give students explicit strategies for controlling their concentration

• Read about how the brain works --specifically attention and concentration. (Keeping a Head in School is a book about how the brain works that is written for young people)
• Read and discuss the Concentration Cockpit (Figure 4.1, page 72), and discuss the different kinds of control that can and should be developed.
• Have students write a letter to the teacher describing his or her own strengths and weaknesses in paying attention while reading.
• Have students develop a plan for regaining lost focus while reading, focusing on their own particular distractions (daydreaming, plans after school, etc.)
• Remind students to look back at these plans over the course of the year.

Thinking aloud

The "Think Aloud" strategy demonstrates a mental checklist of the "invisible" processes that develop comprehension: predicting, picturing, making connections, identifying problems, and correcting.

The librarian or teacher can initially model this by reading a selection aloud to a class and pausing to explain his/her own mental processes: "I can predict.." or "This reminds me of..." The teacher shows how each comment reflects one of the reading strategies on the mental checklist. In the next step, the teacher reads/makes comments, but the students identify the strategy associated with each comment. Next, the students can work in pairs to read together, make their own comments, and classify them with checklists. Gradually, the thinking aloud becomes thinking silently. Students can also keep a folder of checklists to assess their progress over time.

Thinking aloud about confusing texts

• Have students bring texts to class that they feel confident reading but that might confuse the teacher. (Ex: song lyrics, poems, computer manuals)
• The teachers should try to make sense of the materials by thinking aloud (verbalizing their process of trying to make sense of texts) in front of the class.
• After modeling thinking aloud, teachers should have students practice thinking aloud about texts that they find confusing.

Students will see that successful reading requires an understanding of how language is used differently and conveys different content in different contexts. They will also be reminded that they may have more reading expertise than they thought they did.

Visual strategies

• Concept map: This strategy helps students activate their prior knowledge and build connections between their previous experience and future reading. Students are divided into groups, and each group is assigned a key term associated with an upcoming unit of study (ex: persecution). As individuals, students makes lists/maps of any associations they have with this word, whether they are other words or personal experiences. Students then discuss their maps with the group, and the group discusses whether or not they share the same concept/definition of their assigned word.
• Concept tree: The concept tree is a type of graphic organizer that grows from the key terms used in previous mapping strategy. When the organizer is used to accompany an article of hate crimes, "persecution" would be one of the key concepts placed in the roots of the tree. The main topic of the article (hate crimes) is the trunk of the tree. As students read, they fill in the branches of trees with the subtopics addressed within the article and details within the subtopics. For example, one of the branches might be "Targets of Hate Crimes," with specific examples (women, ethnic groups).

The importance of literacy

When students understand the power that comes with literacy, they will be more motivated to become readers. "The school library media specialist fosters reading for various pursuits, including personal pleasure, knowledge, and ideas" (Empowering Learners, 21).

Explore the relationship between literacy and society

• Have students read excerpts from autobiographies, poetry, and fiction in which the authors addressed the why read question.
• Have students discuss how reading has enriched these peoples' lives.
• Possibly have students role play conversations in which the various authors or their characters discuss why they read.
• Choose texts from a diverse group of authors so that ethnically diverse students can read testimonies from people with whom they identify (Frederick Douglass, Emily Dickinson, Maxine Hong Kingston, Malcolm X, Rudolpho Anaya -- see Unit One outline in Appendix A for a full list)
• As students read each text in the unit, have them add to a chart that they create individually describing how the author or character might answer the question "why read?"

Identity formation

Students begin to think of themselves as readers the more they learn about how to read. Having them consider the change in their identity from non-reader to reader shows how they can participate in an environment that values independent reading. "The school library media specialist creates an environment where independent reading is valued, promoted, and encouraged" (Empowering Learners, 21).

Consider other struggling readers

• Have students read testimonials from people who struggle with reading.
• Have students respond by writing a letter to the struggling reader and offer advice.

Students will relate to the reader's feelings of inadequacy, and writing out explicit advice for his problems with reading will help them to internalize the information that they are learning in the course.

Dialogue between a nonreader and a reader

• Set up this situation: A student who only likes books about serial killers and someone such as Malcolm X or other authors from the unit or another student who has overcome a struggle with reading, are sitting at a table in a library reading. All of a sudden the fan of serial killer books slams his book down and says, "I hate reading!"
• Explain to students that they will be writing a two-page dialogue in which the person who now likes to read talks to this student about how to not hate reading so much.
• Have students read their dialogues aloud with a partner.

Reflection

Ongoing student reflection

• Classroom discussion
• Learning logs
• Double-entry journals
• Letters
• Essays

Students will be able to see real evidence of their reading growth, which will motivate them to keep striving to improve their reading skills. Varied outlets for reflection will provide students practice with engaging with writing and speaking in different formats and in different tones, all while keeping their attention on the course goals and their own progress.

Thinking on Paper

• As they read the text students write notes in the margins of their text about what they are thinking, questioning, and not understanding
• Students meet in groups of four to share their reading processes and to clarify vocabulary, ideas, and responses to the text
• Full class discussion where the students question the teacher about the reading
• This method gives students time to reflect and articulate their reading processes and comprehension problems before participating in the small group discussion

Triple Entry Journals

• Writing page is divided into 3 columns
• In column one the student summarizes the text read and a golden line form the text that represents the theme of the portion read
• In column two the student writes "one more question(s) I have about
• In column another student in the group will write questions and opinions about the student's summary and golden line as well as writing any additional questions that have not been asked yet.